Sets [KLD] Kaladesh Spoilers Thread

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
CML said:
How does everyone here like energy?
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It's probably the best mechanic in the set. I was wondering whether you'ld ever want to spend the energy from self-contained cards on something other than that card, and the answer is a (surprising?) yes. There's a lot of different effects going on, and some nice pay-off cards that require a high energy cost. Deciding which little effect to use, or whether you should save up for the big bang makes for very satisfying gameplay imo. The question is if we should move all-in on the mechanic for our cubes, because it definitely works best when it's well supported.
 
CML

CML

Contributor


missing anything?

is energy a thing?

have we edged close enough to making a real artifact theme now?

are racecars as dumb as my rustic relatives have led me to believe?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
The problem I'm starting to have with an artifact theme is I keep asking myself the question: "Would this card be more or less interesting if it said creature instead of artifact" (Assuming both cards are balanced etc etc etc)

Less Interesting: (Winners)


More Interesting (Losers)


Wash:


See Volrath's Stronghold, Natural Order, I dunno, brood sliver? For actual examples of the wash cards typeshifted.

That's not an encouraging list. The new daretti seems like the biggest example here, he almost looks like he says creature on him already, and you wouldn't even notice if you didn't change both isntances of the word artifact -_-

Sure, you can probably add an artifact based deck to your cube, since there's all sorts of stuff here I haven't mentioned, like Nerd Ape and Embraal Bruiser who are the old "Unplayable turned off, Above the curve turned on" type creature, who you can put a lot of work into them being turned on a playable percentage of the time, but you've still only created a situation where there's one deck that wants this card, and it's useless the rest of the time, and it's not always great for that deck.

As lucas asked me: "Are you really making drafting more interesting by including this?"
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Addendum: I do want to mention that Marionette Master is still quite interesting while it says artifact. I love the ability to turn 5 clues into a win condition instead of just slow card advantage, and the choice it offers is an interesting one on a lot of boards. I just feel that the broader appeal and the interesting blood artist + army in a can type effect is an interesting one as well, and we've never seen scaling blood artist, so that's also exciting.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Your theory is sound but we typed it out a few years ago too. Has anyone (maybe artifact-heavier than me beforehand) tried these cards, can they tie a theme together or will they just fit in a single deck?
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
To make an artifact deck work, you need density, and some deck overlap within a shard or a wedge.

Ideally you would be running signets, since that provides a high demand artifact pick.

If you're not blossoming the artifact section out from 30-50 cards, that raw space has to be made up within the colored sections. Colored cards that happens to be artifacts or cards that produce artifact tokens are your most important enablers, and should be nestled into the shard or wedge that is supposed to be the focus of artifact interactions. For you higher power folk, its pretty close to a given that the deck is going to be RU/w, off of the back of pia and kiran, and whirler rogue, with maybe some incidental green options. Probably a fairly assertive control deck with some recursive properties. Than layered over that should be a R/W/g or R/W/u, sort of a more aggressive midrange deck that uses artifacts to grind out advantage.

Black is still pretty bad at generating artifact density, even with the few fabricate cards they printed.

Don't go too deep with narrow cards whose floor is close to unplayable without artifacts, as there are still density issues even with recent printings. Cards should be serviceable, but become better with artifacts. I don't even really like thirst for knowledge, thoughtcast is unplayable, etc.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Absolutely! What I'm trying to say is that I can have any artifact density imaginable, and I still don't think Daretti, or Thopter Spy Network, or Tinker (etc etc etc) are worth including.

Like start off with assuming you have the ideal density of artifacts. What cards (Either from my list above, or your own) would you include?
Tezeret seems sweet, and contrary to my above sentance I think Spy Network would be a cool card to play with, if a bit grindy. Pia/P&K and Thirst are fine without any other artifacts, so they're in.

But the others...I dunno.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Daretti and spy network should be fine. Sharding sphinx is fine, and prob academy ruins. You could run etched champion, and if you are fine with shock, galv blast.

Tinker is probably Still too hard to work, but it might be more generally playable now with a bunch of fabricate tokens running around.

If you can run master, wing, blade, and vital splicer, maybe hexproof metalcraft angel and jor kadeen?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I kinda disagree on Daretti. To me he feels like an all in one reanimator piece, toned down because of the restrictive targeting. I always felt recurring nightmares was a lot more fun in concept than in practice (power issues aside)
I think etched champion is the exact kind of thing I'm trying to avoid. Good old Grey Ogre/True-Name Nemesis split card!

Galv Blast is probably worth considering. The splicers help, but they're less artifact payoffs and more... midrange payoffs? I guess you could sharpie them up by replacing "golem" with "artifact creature", but at that point they might need nerfing :p
 
sigh

sigh

Daretti is the most fun reanimator piece I've ever played with. The fact that it powers itself, and is at least decent without any synergies is awesome.

You've gotta have signs for your archetypes, and Daretti is a beautiful one.

I've been thinking about converting some lands into carefully thought out rocks and baubles, towards the end of ratcheting up support for this archetype
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Basically, you have to remember this is going to involve running some semi-narrow cards, and be cool with it. Artifacts (at least as we design our formats) is always going to default to a disjointed axis from what the cube is looking to do, and what you want to do is smooth that out as much as possible in the colors that you can.

For example, you're never going to get to the point where artifacts are incorporated enough where thoughtcast is playable, but you do have enough density where slightly narrow cards like daretti become runnable.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Magic story articles are always hit and miss, but this week's episode was one of the better ones they've released. The parts in Kaladesh were whatever, but all of the scenes in Kamigawa were fantastic. Ajani probably has the most character development of any of the characters that we've come across.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
shamizy said:
Magic story articles are always hit and miss, but this week's episode was one of the better ones they've released. The parts in Kaladesh were whatever, but all of the scenes in Kamigawa were fantastic. Ajani probably has the most character development of any of the characters that we've come across.
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That was a good story, especially the Kamigawa parts, indeed. Wow.
 
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